After the Rose
by CheerfulChemist
Summary: After a last dance with Kyra, a grieving Rick sees a young Kate Beckett with her mother and then some years later sees her again at a book signing. This is a one shot meant to explore Ricks feelings and Kate's behavior before and after Johanna's death. I own nothing. Follow me on Twitter @CheerfulChemist


After the Rose

Rick fought back tears as he and Kyra danced under the clock at Grand Central Station. She had said she wanted space and he had to let her have it, no matter how much it ripped him apart. He wanted her with him. He wanted to get married, but she would have none of that. She'd called marriage an archaic institution. So she would be off to London and he would be left behind alone. Even as she was in his arms she had retreated, and he missed her already. She would get on a train for a last visit with her family and then she'd be gone.

The announcement came over the loudspeaker and Kyra pushed away. "Rick, that's my train. I have to go." He followed her to the platform for one last kiss before she boarded and stood there watching as the last car disappeared from sight, taking his life with it.

Rick considered occupying his favorite booth at the Old Haunt. A drink or six might dull the pain, but he couldn't be still that long. Leaving the station, he began to walk. He had no destination in mind. Uptown, crosstown, it made no difference. He pulled his collar up against the late fall chill. Cold didn't usually affect him much, but today his blood had no warmth in it. Ahead he could hear excited childish voices and realized that he had been walking toward Rockefeller Center. The rink was open and children were dragging reluctant parents to the ice. Rick stopped to watch despite the cold. At least he could see someone enjoying the day.

Rick's eyes fell on a woman and her daughter. The woman was beautiful and tall with eyes full of mirth. She was comfortable on the ice, her movements sure. The daughter was beauty in progress. She was almost as tall as her mother and all arms and legs, but with real promise of future grace.

Rick was fascinated by the stubbornness of the daughter's motion. Even as her feet threatened to slip out from under her, she fought to stay erect. She resisted falling not through skill, but through sheer force of will. "When that girl grows up," Rick thought to himself, "she will be a force to be reckoned with."

Finally mother and daughter left the ice. Rick realized that he had forgotten the cold while watching them, but was shivering uncontrollably now, as it penetrated his bones. He sought out the warmth of a nearby coffee shop, wrapping his hands around a cup of steaming caffeinated comfort. Hearing giggles, he realized that the mother and daughter he had been watching at the rink were sitting two tables away, talking and sipping hot chocolate. He strained to eavesdrop on their conversation.

"Kate," the mother insisted, "I can't get your dad on maybe you can come up with skating baseball, I think your father-daughter time with him will stay in the stands. I can't get him to stop calling you Katie, either. He's called you that since you were born and he's not about to change now. You can be Kate to the whole world, but to your father, you will always be Katie. I'm still Jo-Jo to mine. That's the way fathers are."

"But mom," Kate protested, "I'm growing up and Dad doesn't realize it."

"Kate," her mother counseled, "he realizes it, he just doesn't want to accept it. Give it time and he'll have visions of walking you down the aisle."

Kate laughed merrily. "He's going to have to wait awhile for that. After I graduate from Stuyvesant, I'm going to Stanford and from there to law school. I'm not thinking about a husband until at least I pass the bar or better still, am on the bench."

"Still determined to be the first female Chief Justice?" her mother asked.

"More so than ever," Kate replied. "There are so many people out there in need of justice and I want to deliver it."

"Kate," her mother assured her, "I have no doubt that whatever you set your mind to, you'll do it. But now, we have shopping to do. I have to get to Rikers Island later."

"Yet another little guy screwed over by the system?" Kate asked.

"I think you should watch your language, young lady," her mother chided, "but yes. There is an unending stream. Perhaps you'll be the one to end it."

Rick drank the last of his cooling coffee and regretfully watched them go. For a few minutes he had forgotten Kyra, forgotten the hole she had torn inside him. But the exit of mother and daughter, so full of hope and joy, left him as empty as his cup.

* * *

Best-selling author Rick Castle sat behind his table at the book store, his shoulder increasingly sore from signing his name. The line had stretched out the door and almost around the block, but it was short now, with only a few more fans to go. A young woman he judged to be about nineteen stood before him. She was tall and from what he could make out under her coat, well put together. There was something familiar about her, as if he had seen the face before, but not fully formed. Her eyes drew him. They were hazel but with hints of green, beautiful but shadowed. There was a sadness in them that seemed to reach to the depths of her soul, but they brightened as he smiled. "Who should I make it out to?" Rick inquired, forgetting his own ache.

"Kate," she said, "you can make it out to Kate."

Rick continued to study her face as he handed back her book. "Have we met before?" he asked. "You look familiar to me somehow."

Kate shook her head vigorously. "Mr. Castle, if we had, I'm sure I'd remember. Your books are important to me. They've been helping me get through - they've been helping get through some bad times."

Rick gazed at the eyes, now recapturing their sadness, and lightly stroked the slender fingers tightly clutching her book. "I'm sure it hasn't been much, but I'm glad if I could help."

"More than you'll ever know, Mr. Castle," Kate replied and hurried away as tears threatened to burst from her eyes.

Even as the next enthusiastic fan stood bubbling in front of him, Rick watched Kate rush away. "Oh Kate," he thought, sighing, "somehow, some way, there should be joy in those eyes. Someday I hope I'll see it."


End file.
